Top Common Engine Problems 1998-2011 Ford Ranger Truck

In this video, we're going to discuss engine problems with '98 to 2011 Ford Rangers. Most common problem to start with is a coolant smell, coolant leak. You get something, you can smell it, see it on the ground, catch it before it's too late, because it's a simple thermostat housing. Plastic thermostat housing on top of a plastic intake. For some reason, I can see them, I've taken them off and they're warped, they've twisted. They do make aluminum aftermarket ones, but you can get the kit real inexpensive. Do it yourself. Fix that before you have any overheating problems, because if you do, you could be looking at a lot more expensive internal work just for a simple thermostat housing.

Another problem with the 4.0, not really that common, usually just in the earlier models like around '98 to '04 maybe, was a timing chain chatter. And you only heard it when you started up cold. You'd start the car up and it sounded like a metal change is wrangling. Nice sound, right? Well anyways, that's what it sounded like, and it only did it when it was cold. Easy fix, because these are not interference engines.

So once again, you don't want to prolong it, but it's... I said easy fix, it's not an easy fix. You have to take the engine out to do it properly and to get to everything clean and access. Because the oil pan has to come down, cover has to come off, cam and cranks, all the pulleys. So it's quite a depth job, but the good news is, if it does break or jump time, the valves do not bend.

So the next one is what we call in the industry, the mystery sound. And you had to have real good hearing and patience to break this down. Because when it first happened, there was no YouTube or channels that you could Google on the internet and say, "Oh, what's this sound?" You had to literally do your homework. And it sounded like a drive belt chirp. It was like chu, chu, chu, chu. And you would take that drive belt off and it would still be there.

Some people were like "I think it's the rimming seals dry". You ran into a lot of problems because Ford Tempos which is 2.3 had that problem with the rear main seal. But you don't want to be pulling out a four wheel drive transmission transfer case just to find out it's not the seal. What it ended up being is what Ford calls the camshaft synchronizer. Basically, it's the base bottom half of a distributor because they got rid of the distributor.

Well, they had a coil with wires and that distributor shaft still ran the oil pump, and sometimes they put actual a cam sensor on top in the beginning, kind of like your Jeep did the same thing. For some reason it got a chirp to it. just got dry and would just chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, and you would just take the whole thing out and you could replace it, lube it up or live with it. It wasn't really dangerous. Just pretty annoying.

All right, let's talk about IAC valves, Idle Air Control. Common in a lot of vehicles, especially when they first started coming out with IAC valves in those year ranges. Plastic intake, IAC, plastic, stays cool, doesn't heat up, carbon sticks to it. These IAC valves caused a lot of idle complications, stalling, rough idle, searching for the idle. What a common problem also would be is vacuum leaks. So the intake, the gasket where it meets the intake, rubber seals leak, the plastic twists a little bit, common elbows, vacuum lines like these elbows here, for some reason, they just snap off. Well it's plastic, so it's plastic under a car, it gets really hot temperature in the plastic would just disintegrate and break.

So PO171, PO174, very common codes to come up for a vacuum leak. You would say running lean, running rich. Look for vacuum leaks, some people use smoke machines. If you have one, go for it. Another good way to do it is a shop vac, reverse it so that it blows out the hose instead of vacuum. See if you can rig it up to blow on this intake right here, open your throttle body, and then use soapy water and spray with soapy water and it'll blow bubbles. I know it sounds funny, but it actually works and it's pretty cheap and you have a shop vac already, so just use it.

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